That's the good thing about Romney- if you don't like his position on some matter, you can pretty much find tape or video of him stating the exact opposite more to your liking. A quick search for "Mitt v. Mitt" yields some interesting results in this regard.

Cut taxes 20% across the board? Took both sides. Pre-conditions covered? Took both sides. For the stimulus or against it? Took both sides. Pro-choice or Anti-Choice? Took both sides. "I was an Independent during Reagn-Bush" versus "I am Severely Conservative"...."I believe the earth is getting warmer- and humans are contributing to that" vs "We don't know why the climate change is happening"....

Trying to get him to stick to a specific position is like trying to nail jello to the wall-

Like most highways, it had plenty of capacity when built. But for too long it hasn't expanded as fast as demand has. So we get gridlock, just on the rest of our highways. (Albeit without the excuse of NIMBYism preventing expansion.)

The Salt Lake Tribune editorial endorsing Obama says it all very well. Mitt himself maybe at heart a mild center right type pol (and his record as Gov backs this) but it would seem that he is so desperate to be President that he has sold his soul to some scary people.

I fully agree. Those too were strange times in that the 2000 version McCain was widely available early on in 2008 but mid year was withdrawn by popular demand of the GOP base and re-issued as a one off offer as a reworked 2008 McCain + a 2008 Palin.

Bob Scheiffer might ask the president why it took so long to find out what happened, just as Martha Radditz asked of Joe Biden, who, of course, stirred up another controversy.

Recall:

Oct. 14th -- Republicans, notably Lindsay Graham, said "presidential aides deliberately covered up the details of the attack so that voters wouldn't question Obama's handling of the war on terror."

Oct. 15th -- Clinton conveniently takes responsibility for the attack the day before the last presidential debate. It wasn't until the debate that Obama took responsibility for security in Benghazi.

You can read the "muddled message" timeline through Oct. 19th for yourself. Start with this Sept. 18th entry:

Sept. 18. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney says the White House doesn't have any indication the Benghazi attack was premeditated, but adds it's still under investigation and the assessment could change. The president on the "Late Show" with David Letterman describes the anti-Muslim film and then says: "Extremists and terrorists used this (as) an excuse to attack (a) variety of our embassies, including the one — the consulate in Libya."

Suggests that the intelligence briefings given to senior officials were not updated to show "no premeditation" until a week or so later.

But my real question is what would have been the substantive difference from a Republican president?

(Actually, it probably would have been, "We have had a terrorist attack elect a Republican so we can crush our enemies" and any democrats who tried to do what the republicans are doing to Obama now, would have been excoriated for their lack of patriotism. )

What would have been the substantive difference? I don't know the answer to your hypothetical question.

From above timeline: Oct. 10. A top State Department official, Charlene Lamb, acknowledges at a House hearing that she had declined to approve more U.S. security as violence in Benghazi spiked. She said the department wanted to train Libyans to protect the consulate. She told lawmakers, "I made the best decisions I could with the information I had."

It is outrageous to me that a state department official would deny the Libyan ambassador's request for additional security. How could Clinton possibly believe that an embassy attack on the 11th anniversary of September 11th was sheer coincidence?

It is outrageous that at the Biden-Ryan debate on October 11th, a sitting vice-president wouldn't know what an official at the State Dept. said the previous day. Instead, he blames Ryan for cutting "embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for" as if security personnel couldn't have been moved from a safer location to accommodate the Ambassador's request. Was it logistically impossible to do so because Ryan cut the budget?

I could continue with other examples, but what's the point? Obama selected Hillary Clinton to be his Sec. of State. He is responsible for her actions, and the actions of his administration.

She could believe it was coincidence (or opportunistic would be the better word) because there were protests on that day around several other American embassies throughout the region.

Security was requested for Tripoli and as you might note, with Tripoli the right call was made. (That embassy was fine)

There are 250 some embassies/consulates throughout the world most of them have a very small security detachment. (For example the consulate in Chengdu China only has 6 marines, only 2-3 of which are on duty at any one time. To stop the attack we received (over 50 heavily armed militia) would have required a commitment of 20 marines otherwise known as a lot. When you think about their salaries alone (not even counting the facilities and weapons they'd need) that's a few million dollars, which the state department didn't have which is why they went with training cheaper locals. (They might have been able to reinforce one consulate in Libya, but there are consulates throughout the region, they couldn't reinforce all of them.)

The fallacy comes from assuming that they knew this consulate was definitely going to come under attack, which they didn't. There'd been threats against it, but every consulate in the middle east and some elsewhere gets threats. They all probably want an extra squad of marines and the state department doesn't have the resources to grant all of their requests. It can only grant those it sees as most at risk. Did they mess up the Libya threat assessment? Absolutely, but it isn't a mark of deep incompetence as much as it is bad luck.

The only thing that could have stopped it would have been a military deployment that's several times larger than the ones we have at any of our embassies. From an article about the hearing you're quoting, the guy who requested the security

"That officer, Eric Nordstrom, said he interpreted Lamb's refusal as "there was going to be too much political cost." But in his written statement, he acknowledged that the "ferocity and intensity of the attack was nothing that we had seen in Libya, or that had seen in my time in the Diplomatic Security Service. Having an extra foot of wall, or an extra-half dozen guards or agents would not have enabled us to respond to that kind of assault."

Had there been more guards, more people would have died.

And congressional republicans did cut 300 million from the security budget. One of the things that pays for is new buildings and fortifications. The consulate in Benghazi was essentially an over sized condo with a wall around it because they couldn't afford to do what is the safer option. Buy a plot of land and spend several million dollars to build a secure facility. Instead they had to do their job with less resources, so the state department was looking into cheaper solutions for security.

Finally, State Department officials are career foreign service officers. Secretary Lamb is not a political appointee, she would have been there regardless of who was president.

"It is outrageous that at the Biden-Ryan debate on October 11th, a sitting vice-president wouldn't know what an official at the State Dept. said the previous day. Instead, he blames Ryan for cutting "embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for" as if security personnel couldn't have been moved from a safer location to accommodate the Ambassador's request. Was it logistically impossible to do so because Ryan cut the budget?"

"Ms. Lamb manages more than $1.2 billion in security assets and programs and thousands of personnel dedicated to that purpose. She is also responsible for the safety and security of over 285 overseas Embassies and Consulates and oversees the 550 special agent/security professionals posted at those locations."

1.5 billion to 1.2 billion is a MASSIVE reduction. 20% If you look at the numbers we have, 1.9 special agent/security professionals per embassy. (Obviously, it's not evenly distributed, but as you can see moving 10 marines to Benghazi would have meant stripping them from somewhere else. )

Personally I think 1.9 marines per embassy is too low, but congressional Republicans don't agree and now they're blaming the Obama administration for not doing more with less resources.

I won't say logistically impossible. If they had rock solid evidence that on Sept. 11 the embassy would have been attacked they could probably find something. But a long term deployment of 10 more security people would have been impossible.

The current CIA assessment of the attack was that the militia did not pre plan beyond a general sense of "We'll attack the consulate sometime" but that they started the attack in response to news coming out of Egypt.

Perhaps the answer to the question posed in the title is that Obama is living with the day to day reality of being president and cannot escape being aware of the yawning gulf between that and campaigning? It would be enlightening to ask former presidents if they enjoyed campaigning more as a challenger, or as an incumbent? That question will have to wait until there is more distance from the election.

Lexington conveniently ignores the history of the Obama campaign and their cackhanded attempt to portray Mittens as an evil superplutocrat that revels in people dying of cancer. To borrow his own words; this is one reason why I love politics. All the money in the world, all the pollsters and ad men and clever consultants for the Democrats cannot eliminate the ability of a Republican candidate to speak directly to the people. Obama's message thread since this ad hominem smear campaign backfired and resulted in higher negatives for himself? Big Bird. Binders. Etch-A-Sketch. Pathetic. When Lexington asks what took him so long, he is clearly not referring to a rationale for another term or a convincing defense of his record over the last four years. We're still waiting for those.

He likes wordplay? What about the Obamnesia over halving the budget deficit, introducing a comprehensive immigration bill in the first year, cut the cost of health insurance by $2500, and bring Democrats and Republicans together to form an agenda? Contradictory speeches and comments about Benghazi? Amnesia indeed!

Record-setting filibusters by the GOP , rooted in a firm determination to "ensure that we deny President Obama a second term" (Sen. Mitch McConnell) from Day One had nothing to do with the tortoise-like pace of progress, I suppose...

"McConnell made his remarks in an interview that appeared in the National Journal on Oct. 23, 2010 — nearly two years after Obama was elected president. The interview took place on the eve the of the midterm elections. The interview is relatively short, so we will print it in its entirety, with key portions highlighted."

Oh okay- so he must have completely worked with the President in a very bipartisan nature up until that very point in time in which he made that comment? So there were no filibusters before that point?....

Obama started it. He campaigned as a non-partisan with a message of "Hope and Change." The minute he gets into office he tells GOP congressional leadership (on Jan. 23, 2009) that he doesn't want to negotiate on the stimulus because "he won."

"he started it!"....you know who else uses that excuse? Seven year olds.

But- by claiming "Obama started it" so early in his tenure, you are admitting that there has been significant resistance on the part of the GOP to anything he's tried to accomplish...thereby validating my entire point in the previous posts.

President Obama listened to Republican gripes about his stimulus package during a meeting with congressional leaders Friday morning - but he also left no doubt about who's in charge of these negotiations. "I won," Obama noted matter-of-factly, according to sources familiar with the conversation.

The exchange arose as top House and Senate Republicans expressed concern to the president about the amount of spending in the package. They also raised red flags about a refundable tax credit that returns money to those who don’t pay income taxes, the sources said.

The Republicans stressed that they want to include more middle class tax cuts in the package, citing their proposal to cut the two lowest tax rates — 15 percent and 10 percent — to ten percent and five percent, rather than issue the refundable credit Obama wants.

Melissia, sometimes I think you make stuff up out of thin air. Inherently bipartisan?

PPACA passed the House by a mere seven votes. The Senate didn't even debate the House bill. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson threatened to filibuster the Senate's version, so the bill was then amended to accommodate Nebraska. Finally, Republican Sen. Scott Brown crossed over the aisle for the needed super majority vote... Obamacare was a nightmare to enact into law and is one of the reasons Rep. Nancy Pelosi is no longer in Speaker of the House.

It was an idea that was originally proposed by a Republican think tank as an alternative to Democrat ideals that would appeal across the isle, and was originally put in to play by a certain moderate Republican governor.

It was an idea that was originally proposed by a Republican think tank as an alternative to Democrat ideals that would appeal across the isle, and was originally put in to play by a certain moderate Republican governor.

FWIW it also says something good about US democracy that the final two surviving candidates both look fairly reasonable. The process did filter out all those terrifying other GoP candidates, though the performance in congress may be less impressive...

Perhaps, but compared to Tim Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman, the spineless Mitt Romney is terrifying in his own right. Don't forget that to pass through the ordeal of the Republican primaries, Mitt Romney had to take some pretty extreme Tea Party-approved positions. To rephrase, he got the nomination only because at times he sounded as extreme as Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum, but also had the backup of his Massachusetts resume (which made him electable). (To go further, I expect that other more serious candidates such as Marco Rubio didn't even bother to participate in this cycle's primaries, notwithstanding the low quality field of candidates, because of the voters: They knew that they had to either pass via the humiliation of a defeat, or that of taking extreme positions that should later be denounced.)

I reckon that he's terrifying because no one knows which way his spine will bend once in office: The Tea Party-way, as he did up to now to get elected (think primaries, Paul Ryan, etc.); Or the Massachusetts centrist-way, as moderate people would probably like or expect him to do.

It is interesting that you characterize Mr. Romney as spineless and then go on later to say that "which way his spine will bend once in office". I guess we are to believe, based upon your comment, that upon entering in the office of President, miraculous medical occurences would occur, restoring the spineless with a flexiblity not present earlier. This obvioulsy hasn't happened with the current administraton as the "spineless" upon taking office remain so, in addition to a pronounced case of "hyprocrisy". However, to address your concern, once Mr. Romneye is in office, you et al. who cannot clearly express your ire without contradction, will find that his spine is quite OK, and doesn't bend when it comes to the truth, something that is a chronic malady of all in the current administration. If anyone is spineless it is those who criticize without understanding what they are saying in the first place.

Everybody knows the famous Lincoln quote of "You cannot fool all the people all the time" but to get elected all the candidate needs is "to fool some of the people some of the time". To be precise, all Obama or Romney needs in this election is to "fool some of the people (ie. 50.01%) of the swing states on election day". Some even contend that all that requires is to "fool 50.01% of the Ohio electorate on Nov 8"
Makes you think doesn't it ?

I think the number needed is much smaller. There is a sliver of the minimally informed in swing states that don't make up their minds until the last minute, unencumbered by reading or following the news.

The US has 250 some embassies and consulates around the world. Security arrangements for each of them are not made at the presidential level.

There was someone within the state department, a step or two below Hillary Clinton, who saw the memos and any security requests and decided how to act on them.

The president is ultimately responsible for the State Department, but the people trying to hang him with Benghazi keep trying to make it seem like he was briefed on the security situation in Libya along with any security requests, and chose to do nothing. This is, of course, ridiculous. Embassy security is a routine staffing operation handled within the state department. It never crosses the president's desk.

The situation at one specific consulate wouldn't make the president's security brief. What probably was in the brief on September 10th was that muslim protests are expected in 10 countries due to the video. This did happen in Egypt, Yemen, Indonesia, Turkey, Tunisia and elsewhere, but not in Libya. I suspect this was most of what caused the muddled response. Protesters in Cairo put up a black flag because of this video and people in Yemen protest for a week, it's hard not to think that the Libya situation must have been related to it. After all, it pissed off so many other people elsewhere.

The intelligence community knew within two days that there wasn't a spontaneous protest in Benghazi and they should and probably did tell the president that. The question then becomes was Susan Rice (who a lot of people seem to thing was given white house talking points) told that. She's the ambassador to the UN not Libya, it's very possible that she was never briefed and answered the questions put to her sincerely believing that it was related to the video because she hadn't seen evidence otherwise.

And that's the final question, how would Romney or any Republican president have handled it differently. The Republicans in congress cut the money for embassy security. The same funding pressure would still be inside their state department, the same bureaucrat would make the decision to leave things as is. The security problem would never go up to the presidential level until after it had failed. That is September 11.

If you say a Republican would have immediately retaliated with all avaliable force, that's even worse than the muddled message that came later. Libyans still like the US. The goal of these militia members is to drive a wedge between the US and Libya as a whole. Their objective was to provoke a massive US retaliation so that Libyans would turn against the United States. And I'm happy that the current administration didn't fall for it.

Good points.
Meanwhile -- Sun Tzu's Art of War: There are battles u dun have to fight; and battles tt you can create to draw others into fight which u dun hav to be involved.
On the other hand. Pax Americana McCain is always looking to get into a fight. Mitt's cut from the same cloth....and probably call it Mission Accomplished (Yup one doesnt need a teleprompter to remember those words or acronyms like WMD)-- the moment the bombers are off the carrier.

NC: The talking points Rice received from the CIA the morning of the 15th contained the version of events she gave in interviews.

And while the confusion over how much of a demonstration there was probably went on too long, according to both the NYTimes Tuesday (from interviews at the time) and the LATimes at the end of the week (from current sources in intelligence), the attack was carried out spontaneously in response to the video and the news of what was happening in Egypt.

That could change (though I doubt it will in essence), but that is the actual understanding of what happened at the moment, for those interested in the objective reality of what occurred.

Now, a stolid, factual analysis would note that Mr Obama was reading from a teleprompter, that the gag was scripted, and that Mr Obama has changed the odd policy position himself over the last four years.

Hey, Jouris. So said Lexington above. This is my reply to New Conservative on the DiA post "Real confrontation" where Robert McShane and Ed McBride discuss (DiA video) the actual debate:

"He didn't imply anything; he described Romney's "crushing attack" on Obama's record, and concluded that it was the best moment of the debate for Romney (3:43 - 4:16)."

The point wasn't whether Obama sometimes uses a teleprompter. Every politician, certainly on the Presidential level, for decades has used one. The point was addressing your question whether Obama was able "to be as belligerent as Joe without a teleprompter." And I was suggesting that he does know how to be, if not as belligerent as Biden, still belligerent enough.

It wasn't a question, it was an exaggeration. Yes, Obama was feisty. He and Romney almost got into a fist-fight. The next day, Tagg Romney said he wanted to jump out of his seat to punch Obama in the face.

I'm sure the President is quite comfortable with defending his response to the Benghazi incident, based on statements he has made since the second debate. Mr Romney is not helping himself by trying to make something out of this.

For a small number, "politics" is probably as good a term as any. (And I certainly would not want to deal with a politician who was incapable of changing a position when new information became available!)